


Tumblr Prompts-- Shadowhunters

by Wilson



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drabbles, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Fun, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Malec, Other, Romance, Sizzy - Freeform, clace, short fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-29 05:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15066182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wilson/pseuds/Wilson
Summary: Catch all for Shadowhunters Tumblr Prompts. Some will be ShadowBorn excerps, some won't.Newest: The Three Times Alec Could, and Once he Didn't Have To (Malec Flavored)





	1. Earth to Squib

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: (From Tumblr) 
> 
> A: You know, I’ve never seen you in casual clothes.
> 
> B: *is in what they consider casual clothes* huh?
> 
> (This one IS a ShadowBorn excerpt, from about three chapters from where we are now... so, slight spoilers. Also, haha, Harry Potter reference...)

**Prompt One:**

Evening light slanted through the high, multicolored windows of the New York Institute. Lounging like a cat on a low couch, one of Izzy’s long-fingered hands worried at her bracelet as she studied the book in front of her. On the other side of the room, her brother’s perfectly tousled dark head was just visible above a stack of yet more books. Jace was… pacing. His blonde hair reflected the dying sunlight, glittering in the fading orange beams each time he passed under the window.

 

The search for information about Valentine Morgenstern was not progressing smoothly. Clary though with a grimace about the last time she’d called Simon, the hard edge to his voice as he had begged her to come home. _“This is my best chance of helping my mom.”_ She’d told him. It was true, but it hadn’t felt like enough when he’d signed, disappointed and perhaps a little pained.

 

She’d left him alone, to try and heal without even being able to talk to anyone about how he’d _really_ gotten his strange, ghastly wound.

 

She was being a terrible best friend, and so far it didn’t feel worth it.

 

A hand, wearing a fingerless black leather glove, entered her field of vision and snapped a few times. “Earth to Squib. Are you awake?”

  
Clary scowled. “You can’t call me that, you wouldn’t even know what it means if Simon hadn’t told you.” Jace grinned down at her, cocky as ever. It made her scowl deepening. “I know _now_ , that’s all I need, Squib.”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be _helping_?” She gestured to the dark-haired siblings, still looking through books, though Isabelle was shooting Jace disapproving glance over hers, and she’d stopped turning pages.

 

Jace shrugged carelessly. Clary saw the tightness in his shoulders anyway. “I help by killing things, mostly. Currently, nothing to kill so…”

 

“So you kill my patience?”

 

Now he grinned, “Pretty much.”

 

She groaned and put her head in her hands. “Must be hard to be a meathead with nothing to smash,” she grumbled, loud enough for the leather-clad hunter to hear her as he sauntered off. Isabelle snorted, though somehow she still managed to make it sound dainty. Her skin-tight blue wrap dress, accented by silver jewelry and hair clips, made her look like she should be in an expensive nightclub, not a library, looking for information that probably didn’t even exist.

 

Clary frowned, looking down at her sweats, topped with one of Simon’s old band shirts. She’d never really given it much thought before, but actually… it was a little odd. “You know what,” She said thoughtfully as Alec came to sit on the end of the couch his sister was draped across. Jace resumed his quest to wear a hole in the floor, Ignoring her again, but the Lightwoods looked up. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of you in casual clothes.”

 

Izzy frowned, “what do you mean?”

 

“You know,” Clary waved a vague hand at her comparably ratty attire. “Like, comfy clothes. PJ’s or sweats or… stuff like that…” She trailed off lamely as both Izzy and Alec gave her blank looks. “I mean… Ok, what do you wear to _relax_?”

 

Alec looked down at his leather pants and black shirt. The buckles on his black boots gleamed in the evening light. “I am relaxed.” He ran a hand through his perfect hair, somehow making it even _more_ magazine worthy.

 

Izzy smiled, her perfect red lips revealing straight white teeth. She curled on the sofa and grabbed yet another book. “Yeah, I mean, this dress is pretty stretchy. It’s nice, we should get you some next time we go--”

 

“Never _mind_ .” Clary sighed. Maybe this was one of those angel/human things. Though that didn’t explain why  _they_  were inhumanly gorgeous and she was just… normal? Was there a _‘perfection’_ rune she didn’t know about?

 

She resolutely ignored Jace’s laughter.


	2. Patience, Padawan (Part One!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn't from Tumblr, just popped in my head. After all, Clary isn't going to be good at shadow-hunting right away. Iratze come in handy when training novice demon killers, I think... ;)
> 
> Can be taken as stand-alone or part of ShadowBorn. Training montages are ubiquitous.

**Second Prompt:**

 

The pair of figures ran down the alleyway, dripping blood and ichor, stinking to high heaven.

 

Clary’s fingers were numb around the hilt of her seraph blade; it dangled loosely as she started to slow down.

 

She'd been doing so _well_ this time! From the back of the alley the wretched screams seemed to chase them-- silent to the mundanes walking obliviously by, just visible as shadows at the mouth of the alley, but screaming in her ears. Proof that her mission had failed, putting her at 4/9 for the week. All the little mistakes she had made in the battle started to flash before her eyes. No matter how hard she trained with Jace, she always seemed to mess something up when it came to the real thing-- or these“test runs” as Jace called them. It was her fault they’d had to retreat and wait for backup. Her fault that the horrible thing was still alive (if only barely). If Jace wasn’t always having to save _her_ …

 

A hand slapped, not very hard but sharply, against her cheek. “Stay awake. Don’t sleep.”

 

Clary opened her eyes begrudgingly and glared up at her companion. Speak of the devil. “I wasn’t _sleeping_. I was feeling sorry for myself.”

 

“That’s worse.” The blonde man watched her for a moment with considering eyes, then bent down and pulled her up by her arms. “What-- no--” his shoulder in her stomach knocked the wind out of her, cutting off her protest. Jace's hand came up to her shoulder to steady her, and he swore.

  
She didn’t have to look to know there would be red smearing his palm. She could feel it seeping into her shirt. Suddenly the dizziness made sense.  _'Oh yeah...'_

 

“You told me you were _alright_.” his voice was a growl of frustration and… something else. Something that lived in the tightness around his eyes as he set her down again, more carefully this time.

 

“I _am alr_ \--” but he was already pulling at her bloody shirt, hands insistent, searching for a wound. “Where is it?” his voice was flat.

 

Sighing, Clary pulled the dirty grey fabric aside, exposing the base of the curved black fang protruding from just below her ribs. He swore again, more colorfully this time. “It’s nothing, I just didn’t have the time to yank it out and draw an _iratze_ before you--”  

 

The white light of the stele was flashing in Jace’s hand before Clary could finish the sentence. She sighed.

 

\--


	3. Three Times Alec Could, and Once he Realized he Didn't Have To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt Three: Do you ever wish you couldn’t? (Alec)

**Prompt Three:**

 

His shoulder crunched beneath his weight as he crashed to the ground. For a moment the limb attached to it went numb, and Alec stared blankly at the side of the building he lay beside. Pain skittered down his arm, fizzling away into numbness in his fingers.

Then, it slowly receded. After all, angelic bones were much harder to break, angelic muscles were dense and strong. Feeling returned to his fingers and the stunning pain faded. Alec jumped to his feet, reaching for his stele. The cut on his back reminded him of its rather uncomfortable existence, and he grit his teeth. The eerie feeling of his own loose, flayed, flesh rubbing over his shoulder as he reached back made him want to shudder.

But he didn't shudder. Because the demon was still spewing ichor and acid at Jace, who was stabbing with amazing dexterity around the flailing limbs, his eyes shining with the thrill of battle. Because Izzy was still wrestling with the second beast, her hair a wild fall of dark curls around her serious face. Because beside him two mundanes still cowered, overwhelmed by wide-eyed, uncomprehending fear.

Because there was work to be done, and he could still move.

 

\----

 

 

The alarm rang with shrill insistence, making Alec groan and roll towards the nightstand reflexively. His body was still sore from training yesterday, and the chill of the very early morning, when the blood pulsed like molasses in his veins and his brain was foggy, felt insurmountable. For a moment, he let himself sag into the mattress, his palm connecting with the snooze button.

He let himself drift. It felt so good, felt  _ so  _ necessary.

But it only  _ felt  _ that way.

Hating himself simultaneously for being lazy  _ and  _ for getting out of his warm bed, Alec dragged his limp body into a sitting position, ordering limbs to move. The room was empty. The tile in the bathroom felt like ice on his feet, but he  _ could  _ wake up, so he did.

He felt for the edge of the sink in the darkness.

 

 

\----

 

 

They weren’t coming. Izzy flounced and huffed and pouted her perfect mouth. Jace frowned, his lips pursed and expression pinched. Alec didn’t do anything. Didn’t make any face. Didn’t sigh or groan. He could stop it, so he did.

“Understood.” He said into the glowing light of the portal. His mother’s face, distorted by the magical window, was equally blank. “We’ll try to come by in three months,” she said, “when your father is done with his current assignment. He’s under so much pressure right now, you know.”

Alec put his hand reflexively over the breast pocket of his coat, where his commendation from the clave for  _ Bravery in the Line of Duty _ was folded away, tucked in next to the information about the dinner reservations Isabelle had made. Plates for six. Now, dinner for three.

“It’s the burden of leadership,” Alec said.

 

 

\----

 

 

The warlock was beautif-- no. That wasn’t right. The magic was beauti-- no… was that worse? Alec tried not to let his emotions show on his face as he and his battle brother watched the blue and gold sparks light up the lithe form of the High Warlock of Brooklyn. The Warlock’s eyes, dark and lined with kohl and glitter, were fixed on the spell he was working, but the rest of his body seemed to dance with the pulsing bursts of power.

Jace and Alec stood side by side, two soldiers sent by the Clave to witness and carry out this special commission. Warlocks were not demons, technically, and their assistance was sometimes called on by the Clave for particularly thorny issues. This wasn’t so unusual.

Alec firmly fixed his eyes on the corner of the window, where the stucco and patterned ceiling of the warlock’s apartment met with one of the ornately carved pillars which appeared to be holding up the outer wall. This room, Alec told himself, had sort of a Moorish Spain vibe. He wondered what the rest of the apartment looked like.

He did not look at the way the muscles in the Warlock’s arm moved in the unearthly light. He did not look at the clever hands as they moulded the magic the Clave needed. He did not look at the Warlock at all. He didn’t have to, Alec told himself. If he didn’t  _ have  _ to, he wasn’t  _ going  _ to.

Alec was so busy  _ not  _ looking at things that he failed to notice Jace’s eyes studying his face curiously.

*

The Warlock had looked a little winded when the spell was finally done. Alec found himself wondering if it was an effort to do magic, the way it was an effort to wear runes and train. Sometimes, though the runes gave them access to the power of their angelic blood, Alec found himself drained by the constant thrum of energy around his body.

He found himself studying the way the Warlock moved with a practised eye, as he walked over to Jace to accept his not particularly cheap fee for the services rendered. He did look a little drained, Alec decided. He had seen enough of battle and magic to know what it looked like. Alec wondered if the Warlock had any other big commissions today. It wouldn’t be a good idea to overwor-- The Warlock was staring at him.

Slightly panicked, Alec snapped his gaze back to the relative safety of the window again. He didn’t want to, but he hardly considered that. He had to. And he could. So he did.

He silently prayed to the Angel that Jace would  _ hurry up _ .

*

On their way out of the loft, the Warlock stopped Alec with a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he was stunned, his brain freezing under the weight of the palm that had so recently been glowing with power. Should he defend? Block? Escape? Or would that be offensive? Politics played an important part in the Clave/Warlock relationship, it was his job as a representative of the Clave to uphold the Accords.

Jace’s hand was on the hilt of his seraph blade, Alec noted, typical Jace. The fingers were lose, but his brother’s eyes were intent on the Warlock. Alec held up a hand to hold him back, for  _ political reasons _ .

The Warlock was ignoring Jace, though. He didn’t seem aware of the tense moment he was causing. In fact, he was smiling up at Alec, his eyes seemed to be searching Alec’s face for something. Alec couldn’t imagine what, but he had a nice smile.

Then the hand squeezed Alec’s shoulder, and the Warlock sighed. “Do you ever wish, Alexander,” the Warlock asked, “that you were a little  _ less  _ good at carrying on?”

Jace’s grip on his elbow was all that got Alec through the door.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt Four, from Tumblr this time… Modified for SH: (this one is 100% a spoiler for SB, but not about anything crazy.
> 
> \--  
> “Who are you?”
> 
> “No one important.”
> 
> “Oh, ok. So if you’re so ‘unimportant’, would you care to explain the Glowing eyes and magical runes?”

**Prompt Four**

 

Clary gaped at him, blinked, rubbed her eyes and gaped again. 

 

Yup, they were still glowing. 

 

“What  _ are  _ you?” Clary had to shout over the roar of the waterfall. At her feet the carcass of the Fae guard who had tried to stop them was beginning to release the sickly-sweet scent of syrup and rot. She backed away from the edge of the pond reflexively, away from the body and from the unearthly glow of Jace's eyes. That was _not_ something she'd ever seen a Shadowhunter do before. 

 

Jace grabbed her arm. “No, we have to go  _ now _ , more of them will be coming soon.” His eyes had gone back to their normal unusual color. Clary had to laugh at that. “I thought your eyes were bicolored before,” she told him, “I didn’t realize how literal that was. How can your eyes _glow_ like that? I thought you were a Shadowhunter.” 

 

Jace grimaced, “I _am_.” He insisted, pulling her back to the edge of the water. “Can you please focus on the oncoming peril?” 

 

Clary twisted her hand to grab his arm in return, readying herself to jump back into the swirling water, more confident this time. “Whatever you say, Angel-Eyes.”

 

Jace groaned. 


End file.
